In early April, Palestinian prisoner Musab Qatawi was released from Israeli captivity with his head forcibly shaved — and carved into his scalp was the Star of David, etched by occupation soldiers with a sharp tool. This was not the first such case. Nearly two years earlier, the same symbol was cut into the face of another prisoner, Urwa Sheikh Ali.
From these scenes emerges a haunting question: why does Israel inscribe the Star of David on the bodies of Palestinian prisoners — on their heads and faces? And what does this signify in the broader struggle over identity, humiliation, and resistance?
The face, in both its physical and symbolic dimensions, has become a battleground between coloniser and colonised. If Israel seeks to erase the Palestinian face by marking it with the coloniser’s symbol, Palestinian resistance answers with another act: the veiling of the resisting face. Beyond its obvious security function, the masked face of the Palestinian fighter carries cultural, human, and philosophical meaning — asserting dignity in the face of dehumanisation.
The Face as a Marker of Identity
Israeli practices, both inside prisons and outside, are driven by a settler-colonial mentality. At their core lies the effort to erase the identity of the Palestinian “other.” Since 7 October 2023, this genocidal face of the occupation has been fully exposed.
In the carceral spaces of Israel, particularly after the extremist Itamar Ben Gvir became Minister of National Security in 2022, Palestinian detainees endure hellish conditions of systematic degradation. The aim is to break the prisoner’s mind, strip him of identity, and transform him into an empty being, detached from his Palestinian resistance and humanity.
It is in this context that the carving of the Star of David onto the heads and faces of prisoners emerges: a violent, symbolic punishment intended to replace the Palestinian face with that of the coloniser. To erase the features of resistance and brand the captive with the occupier’s mark of domination.
Israel seeks to say: “You resisted me with your body. I will now impose my identity on your body — forever.”
The Starved Face of Gaza
The assault on the Palestinian face extends beyond prison walls. In Gaza, Israel enforces policies of starvation and siege, denying food and medicine and producing visible emaciation across Palestinian faces.
The Gazan face has changed: pale, frightened, tear-streaked, and hollow. Israel punishes faces not only with scalpels and razors, but with famine, bombing, and destruction. Shrapnel and robotic explosives have left permanent disfigurements, turning the very faces of Gazans into mirrors of genocide.
The occupation’s targeting of the human face was also seen in Lebanon in September 2024, when Israel detonated booby-trapped pagers, leaving hundreds disfigured. This demonstrates Israel’s boundless violation of the sanctity of the human face.
The Masked Face of Resistance
Throughout history, the mask has served many purposes — military, medical, artistic, and rebellious. But in the Palestinian struggle, the masked face of the resistance fighter carries meaning that surpasses mere security needs.
The mask conceals not only from surveillance but also from the racist image Israel constructs of the Palestinian face — an image designed to strip Palestinians of humanity.
To Israel, the Palestinian face is never neutral. It is either a threat or a hollowed “other.” By veiling it, the resistance removes it from the coloniser’s gaze. The masked face refuses categorisation and denies the occupier the ability to dehumanise.
Only the eyes remain visible. And these are not submissive eyes, but eyes of defiance: tracking, confronting, resisting. Eyes that reflect dignity and strength, turning the gaze itself into a weapon.
This symbolism was powerfully displayed in the exchange of Israeli captives. Palestinian fighters, masked and disciplined, handed captives to the Red Cross. They imposed no marks, no symbols, no humiliations on their prisoners — in stark contrast to Israel’s carving of symbols on Palestinian bodies.
The resistance showed that its struggle is not about desecrating bodies, but about defending land and dignity.
Global Struggles, Shared Symbols
The masked face of the Palestinian fighter echoes liberation struggles worldwide: the fedayeen in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan; the Vietnamese People’s Army; the Zapatistas in Mexico; the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka; the Sandinistas in Nicaragua; and the Japanese Red Army.
Across continents, oppressed peoples wore masks to defy surveillance, resist colonial violence, and reclaim agency. Always, it was a response to the coloniser’s attempt to define and dominate their faces.
Conclusion: A Battle Over Faces, a Struggle Over Land
By engraving the Star of David on Palestinian bodies, Israel declares war on the very identity of the oppressed. By wearing the mask, Palestinians reclaim their humanity and defy the coloniser’s gaze.
In the end, the Palestinian struggle is not waged on the body but on the land. Since the Nakba of 1948, the occupier has sought to replace both land and identity with his own. Today, Israel’s genocidal war carves its symbol not only onto foreheads but onto the very face of Gaza.
Yet the masked face of resistance responds: “You will not own my face. You will not own my identity. My eyes still see, and my land still resists.”
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